


Little White Notes

by coldfiredragon



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfiredragon/pseuds/coldfiredragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Dick's relationship with Slade through Roy's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little White Notes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters! DC Comics and Warner do. If I owned them they would sure be treated a hell of a lot better than they are in canon.
> 
> This is an old fanwork from 2009. Original post date was March 23, 2009. It's also one of my personal favorite pieces of fanfiction that I've written, hence the repost to showcase it to a new audience.

It had all started with little white envelopes, which contained small handwritten notes, notes that, when Roy realized what they were for, he came to hate. They would appear randomly, usually taped to Nightwing's door in the tower and there would be a missing half an hour or so of surveillance footage that Vic was never able to recover. Dick would take the note down, with this tiny odd smile on his face, then about a week later he'd vanish for a couple days. He took off work, he turned off his communicator, and he would just disappear.

They all wanted to know what happened when he disappeared. No -- more correctly they all wanted to know who he disappeared with. It was pretty obvious what happened when Dick left, that he was seeing someone, and that whoever it was made him pretty damn happy.

Finally Roy had enough of wondering and decided to actually find out who it was that Dick was sleeping with. He really wished he hadn't because watching Dick throw his bag into the back seat of Slade Wilson's car, then climb into the front passenger seat and lean over to give Slade an incredible kiss made his chest ache. Seeing how happy Dick was when he came back two days later and knowing it was because of Slade Fucking Wilson only made it hurt more.

The little white envelopes appeared more frequently and Roy pushed the dark thoughts he felt -- his hopes that the relationship would fail, away. Dick was happy, and he deserved to be happy, and that was all that mattered. Then Kory killed Adeline Kane, and there wasn't a note for a while, and Roy knew how much that hurt.

The next envelope didn't show up until after Donna's death. He was there when Dick found it. It wasn't taped on the door this time, but precisely placed on top of the pillow of Dick's stripped bare bed. Dick hadn't said a word about it, just picked it up and shoved it into the pocket of his backpack with the rest of his clothes. He disappeared for a few days after Donna's funeral. No one asked where he went. They all knew how hard he was grieving, and if he found some solace away from all of them that was better than having none at all.

Dick threw himself into his work on the force after that, and Roy heard that Deathstroke was a little more prominent in Bludhaven than he would normally let himself be. Roy just told himself it was for Dick's sake and dealt with it, no matter how much he hated it. He finally couldn't bear the thought of Dick working alone anymore and started the Outsiders, trying to convince Dick to come home. He was glad when Dick joined, but not about how Dick started to treat the rest of the team. He couldn't turn them into a family like the Titans were, and Dick even tried to keep a distance from him.

The first note appeared on Dick's door about two weeks after the team has set up their headquarters and Roy had to stop Grace from taking it down and opening it when they saw it taped there. He got her to leave it alone by suggesting they have sex in the Peqod. They hadn't tried it there yet and she was excited enough about the possibility to throw him over her shoulder and carry him there before he could change his mind. He was a lot rougher with her than he would normally be -- not that she cared, with her strength -- because he was pissed about the fact that Slade Wilson had gotten closer to Dick than he ever had, and he couldn't help but think about how shitty that was because he's known and loved Dick longer than Slade has.

When he got shot one of the last things that passed through his mind before he lost consciousness was that he'd never get to tell Dick how much he loves him. The last thing was that he hoped Lian will be okay. After waking up and finding Dick asleep by his bedside, he considered telling Dick the truth, then his eyes picked up the corner of an open white envelope under Dick's glove and he knew he couldn't – because Dick already loved somebody else and they cared enough about him to offer him comfort when his world was darkest.

It took him over three months to heal up and get back on his feet and god it was good to be able to run rooftops again. Getting shot has made he and Dick a lot closer now and he didn't notice until Huntress pointed it out to him that Dick was pulling more and more away from the team. He kept a closer eye on Dick after that and realized that Slade's routine has changed. He didn't send notes anymore... but showed up in person. There was more than one night of patrols when Roy would catch the man trailing him and Dick as they swung across New York's skyline. He figured at the time that Slade just finally got tired of hiding.

Lian getting kidnapped forced his attention away from Dick and he spent months helping his baby fight off her nightmares. Her tears broke his heart over again every night and he wished he could make her pain his so she didn't have to suffer. He didn't have time to think about Dick's problems when his little girl's were more prominent, and she needed him so much more.

There was NO ONE more surprised than him when he figured out that 'Batman' was actually Slade in disguise, and the frantic note in Dick's voice when Dick heard him say Deathstroke's name over the comm was enough to scare him. He was almost sure he was going to die and he didn't realize until after Slade had left him beaten but alive that the man hadn't known about the bullet wounds already.

It didn't add up, and he didn't have time to think about it -- because that was when Dick confessed the whole affair. Roy listened silently, and didn't tell Dick that he had already known. Dick then told him about Wintergreen's death. Roy had heard from Vic about Joey's attack on the new Titans team but he hadn't known that Joey had attacked and killed Wintergreen as well. Dick related to him about how having Joey in his head and losing his oldest friend apparently changed Slade for the worse. Dick described Slade as being an entirely different person because of it -- one that Dick decided he didn't want to know.

He whispered miserably that he told Slade they were done, and that he had been terrified that the man was angry enough to kill Roy over it. Roy sensed that something other than Slade's change of heart was bothering Dick -- it was never hard for him to see when Dick wasn't okay -- and he tried to inquire about how things are in Bludhaven but Dick just said he didn't want to talk about it and Roy let the matter drop.

Things went from bad to worse after that. Dick slipped further and further away from him, and away from the team. His leadership became reckless as his personal life fell apart and when Roy confronted him he came away from it with Dick's low hiss of 'junkie' burned hot and hard into his brain. He knew Dick didn't mean it, but at the same time he couldn't quite forgive him either, and when Dick gets shot in the leg it just seemed like a good point to break ties.

He was terrified when he heard about Dick dropping off the map, then the reports started to surface that he was running with the mob, and then with Slade full time. Oracle asked him to check on things and he went eagerly -- and didn't recognize the Dick he saw on those streets. He'd always known that Dick had been easily influenced by Slade for years but when they fought and Dick told him to stay down he really thought he'd lost his friend for good. He couldn't help but think, then, that Slade could have him for all he cared. Then Bludhaven happened.... and Roy wished he had never ever stood by and let Slade and Dick just happen for all those years, because then maybe what happened wouldn't have happened, or maybe what happens was just destiny and would have happened no matter what. He pushed away the hurt he'd been harboring and made himself a promise that he'd be there for Dick from now on.

The battle in Metropolis happened before he had time to console Dick about Slade's betrayal -- about anything, really -- and it was all he could do to sit at Dick's bedside, leg propped up on another chair, cast aching, and pray that Dick survived long enough for him to tell him he loves him. Barbara came by and left the ring Dick gave her while Dick was still unconscious. Roy broke the news to him, and made it better as much as he could by promising to be there, by promising to stay when so many people were abandoning him. The two of them stayed in contact while Dick traveled with Bruce and when he came home, Roy was waiting for him. He convinced Dick to move in with he and Lian and while their relationship wasn't perfect, because Dick couldn't give up that small little part of his heart that was still in love with the man Slade was, they made it work.

They were together a year and a half before they came home from a patrol and found a sealed white envelope on Dick's pillow. Roy wanted to rip it up immediately, and be done with Slade for good but before he could protest Dick had torn open the seal, face set between fury and a kind of terrified hope.

A time.

A place.

And

_”Please come, we need to talk. Slade.”_

There was no argument about whether Dick was going or not, because Dick told him he was before Roy could get a word in edge wise. Roy told him not to get himself killed and when Dick left the next morning Roy didn't care that it was nine in the morning when he popped the top on a beer can. He was already on the third when his Justice League comm chimed and Dinah gave him the news. News that there was more than one Slade Wilson. She explained that the 'good' one, a description that made Roy laugh with the exaggeration, brought in his double and that Checkmate had confirmed that they were the same man but from different earths. (Much like the Luthors, and the memory that Slade had worked with Luthor came up strong.)

The news made his heart break and he debated another beer... but poured a glass of scotch instead, (telling Ollie's voice in the back of his mind to screw off. Alcohol wasn't his vice and he sure as hell wasn't going to prove Dick right by giving into that.) He wasn't sure that Dick would come back at all when he heard the truth from Slade.

He did come back, finally, late that night, but Roy couldn't get him to make eye contact. They didn't talk about what happened while he was away, or about what was said. Dick didn't leave either, at least not immediately. He stayed for about a week, until Roy came home from patrol and found his things gone.

Roy figured that was the end of it, that Dick would take in full now what he could only have in part before and he tried to explain to Lian why Dick had to leave. She didn't understand and he never expected her to.

He got the surprise of his life a little over two weeks later. Omar had the night off and he had taken Lian to a movie. They had come home, and Lian had run off to get ready for her bath and Roy had walked into his bedroom to find Dick out cold on his bed. There was an envelope on his pillow, addressed to him, and Dick had been too deeply drugged to even stir when Roy sat on the edge of the bed and opened the envelope.

_“Take care of him for me. He loves you, even if he's not ready to realize it.”_ Slade's name was scrawled at the bottom and Roy reached over to card his hand through Dick's hair, knowing that Dick wasn't here by choice and that when he woke up and tried to look for Slade, he was going to have to tell him that the man was gone again. It made him hate Slade anew, but at the same time -- he continued to brush his hands through Dick's hair -- maybe this is the chance he'd been hoping for.


End file.
